Free Nemesis by Bill Pronzini

camera—unscrew the telephoto, replace it with a different lens. She looked his way, then off in the other direction, hugging herself as the now-chilly sea breeze quickened.
    Two more minutes ticked away. A lean, balding guy wearing a tank top and shorts appeared from the opposite direction, paused to peer at the overlook signboard. Runyon tensed … but then the man moved on without looking at the client, without looking at Runyon, either, as he passed by. Nobody else appeared on the trail.
    Five thirty-five.
    Verity Daniels glanced at her watch for the third or fourth time, stood poised for a few seconds, cast a quick look in his direction, then left the overlook and started away down the empty trail.
    Runyon let her get out of sight before he followed, putting the cell to his ear again. Still nobody around as he moved into the narrowing section of the path. And nothing to hear from the Q-Phone except faint background sounds, the thrumming of the wind.
    Halfway through the quarter-mile walk to the grotto stairs, a huffing middle-aged runner passed him heading west. No one approached from behind.
    And no one made contact with Ms. Daniels.
    Quarter to six when Runyon reached the grotto. She was standing there looking upward along the deserted stairs, kept her back turned to him as he went by. He walked on up and beyond the incline by seventy-five yards or so, to where he could see a distance along the trail in both directions. Stopped at that point and stood listening, waiting.
    Five minutes limped away.
    And five more.
    Another jogger appeared from the west, a woman this time, hydrating from a water bottle as she ran. No voices came over the Q-Phone.
    Six o’clock.
    He moved then, back to the grotto. Hurrying now. Verity Daniels was still alone, sitting forlornly on the bottom step. Her head lifted, eyes widening, when he approached her; she made a helpless gesture. That was all, no other display of emotion. The cold wind had put blotchy streaks of red in her cheeks.
    â€œHe’s not coming,” Runyon said. “Go on back to your car. I’ll follow.”
    â€œBut why? Why didn’t he come this time?”
    â€œQuick, and don’t look back. I’ll call you later.”
    She went. He gave her thirty yards and then followed, keeping her in sight all the way up to the parking lot and into her car. As far as he could tell, none of the handful of people still in the area paid any attention to either of them.
    In his Ford he locked the Magnum away in the glove compartment, then sat for a minute or two with his hands tight around the steering wheel. Two straight no-shows. That had to mean the extortion demand was either a byproduct or a smoke screen. Blackmailers by nature weren’t timid, didn’t bother with extended dry runs; they were in it for fast money, eager to get their hands on it, and ten thousand dollars was a lot of green. Persecution must be the perp’s real intent. Slow, insidious, the threats of bodily harm possibly genuine. If he hated Verity Daniels enough, it wouldn’t be much of a step from psychological torture to the physical kind.
    And yet it still didn’t feel right. His head said it did, his gut instinct said otherwise.
    But if it wasn’t extortion, it had to be terrorism, didn’t it? What the hell else was there?

 
    7
    He spoke to Verity Daniels that evening, briefly. The second no-show had her upset, but not as upset as she should have been; there was that funny undercurrent in her voice again. He had no answers for her new round of questions and concerns, even less inclination than before to indulge her clingy need for reassurance, so he kept the conversation short. Truth was, her attitude and her penchant for fabrication had begun to erode the compassion he normally felt for crime victims. A client was a client, a job was a job, but even a man as committed as he was had his limits.
    The uncertainty of what he was up against made the job